The invention concerns a robot apt to climb along a trestle structure, particularly the trestle of a pole for high-voltage overhead electric lines, in order to carry work-tools from the base to the top of the pole. More specifically, the robot according to the invention has been engineered to carry up to the pole brackets for instance equipment to wash the insulator chains, of the type described in EP-A1-0360012, filed by the same Applicant. For this reason, and also to make the description shorter, reference will be made hereinafter to the trestle structure of an electric line pole; it is however understood that the robot according to the invention can easily be used to perform different operations, on trestle structures other than those indicated hereabove, or on fixed or temporary trestlework or tubular scaffolding.
In present technology, no apparatus is known to go up and down under its own power, from the base of a pole to the top thereof, by climbing along the trestle structure. In fact, each time an operation has to be performed at the top of the pole, or on its brackets, the operator has to go up himself by climbing along the pole, or using suitable ladders.
The invention starts from the consideration that a trestle pole, or generally a trestle structure, has a plurality of angle bars of standard size, positioned so as to form:
four corner uprights, wherein the two flanges of the angle bar lie on the planes of two adjacent pole surfaces, and PA0 a plurality of oblique crossing ledgers, commonly called trestles, each having a flange on the plane of the pole surface; the other flange, perpendicular to the pole surface, respectively projects outwardly of the pole for a set of ledgers having the same inclination, and inwardly of the pole for the set of ledgers crossing with the first set. PA0 a main support body, PA0 at least a main slide, movable along said body according to a main moving axis substantially vertical and parallel to the pole surface, PA0 at least a first gripping hand carried by the support body and at least a second gripping hand carried by the slide, each gripping hand being equipped with clamping means to grip an angle bar of the trestle structure, PA0 shifting means, to move said hands according to a transversal axis, substantially perpendicular to the pole surface, PA0 at least one position sensor associated with the main body, to acquire position data concerning the configuration of the trestle, and PA0 a processing system which controls the movements of said slide and of said gripping hands, also using and/or storing the signals sent from said sensors.